Cyclone Cleopatra leaves 17 dead and hundreds homeless in Sardinia

Disaster: Flash flooding has killed nine people on the holiday island of Sardinia (Image: Getty Images)

Share

Get daily updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

At least 17 people have been killed in flash floods on the Italian holiday island of Sardinia.

The floods began when rivers burst their banks, while a cyclone smashed cars, flooded homes and brought down road bridges.

The worst affected area was in and around the port city of Olbia in the island's northeast.

Three people from the same family died when a road bridge collapsed onto their van near Olbia, while a mother and daughter were found dead in a car that was swept away in the city.

A police car with four officers that had been escorting an ambulance was also swept away by the heavy rain and high winds of a cyclone named Cleopatra.

Three of the officers were rescued by emergency services but a fourth died.

The victims also included a 64-year-old woman who died in her flooded home in the village of Uras in southwestern Sardinia.

Her husband has been taken to hospital with hypothermia and hundreds of villagers are spending the night sheltering in a local sports hall.

An eighth victim, a man, was reported killed in another bridge collapse while a 90-year-old woman was found dead in a flooded home near Nuoro in the mountainous central part of the island.

In Olbia, hundreds of residents took to Facebook to offer their homes as shelter for the night to those forced out of their houses on a special group entitled: "Let us open our homes to our fellow citizens".

The mayor of Olbia, a northeastern Sardinian town, said the sudden flooding had burst "like a bomb" with the same amount of water falling in 90 minutes as falls in the city of Milan in six months.

Mayor Gianni Giovannelli said houses across the area had been left half-submerged by the floods and rescuers were still searching for possible victims.

"We've just found a dead child we had been searching all night for," he told SkyTG24 television.

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has called a meeting of cabinet ministers to discuss the situation, which he called "a national tragedy".

He also declared a state of emergency, which will allow resources to be freed up more quickly to reach devastated areas.

The government also set aside €20 million in immediate emergency funds to help the rescue and clean-up work.